Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

  Our Lady of Montevergine by Anna Hopkinson Please note: This article does not intend to appropriate the lived experience of Black or Romani people, gay men or traditional Third Genders. Please read the linked articles for wider perspectives. Night was drawing on fast, and with it temperatures none could survive. The ground was covered in a crust of snow. The lovers’ extremities began to turn blue. By morning, if the wolves didn’t hurry, early walkers would find two bodies encased in blocks of ice. But it was not the wolves who came. It was the Madonna. The Black Madonna, they called her. Our Lady of the Shadow-Side.  It’s Pride Month and - aside from posting rainbows and reminders that the A in LGBTQIA+ isn’t silent - I’m crowdfunding a book of Diverse & Inclusive Saints called Legends from Lindisfarne.  One of the most obviously Pride-centred stories in the book is called “Our Lady of Montevergine: Affirmer of Same Sex Couples”. It’s a retelling of a medieval legen...

Grandma & Grandad, c.1940-43 There are a lot of misconceptions about history. One that I frequently encounter regarding the two World Wars of the 20th century, is that men were either classified as fighting fit and sent to armed combat overseas, or classified unfit for service and stayed at home. I’ve never seen a historical drama that represents my Grandad’s experience in the Pioneer Corps during World War II. Luckily, the family still has photos and documents from the time, which help tell his story. And I’m lucky to have Grandad’s own words, in the transcript of an interview I did for a school project in the 1980s. So, here is the story of my Grandad, and many other men like him. David Macrae Cumming was born in 1916 in Lochore, Fife, and moved with his family to Sunderland following the General Strike of 1926. He was an intelligent boy, who got a scholarship to grammar school, but was not allowed to take it up. As the eldest son, his father wanted him to work in the family hair...

  This time last week, I was at the joy that is Bradford Literature Festival. My whole town taken over by all things book-related! I went to three completely different talks, two of which I had bought and read the books for in advance. (The other one I will probably buy when it comes out in paperback). They were: The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph Painted People: Humanity in 21 Tattoos by Matt Lodder Among the Eunuchs: A Muslim Transgender Journey by Leyla Jagiella Three completely different subjects. But what they had in common was that they were all about people on the fringes of society’s so-called norms: Black Britons in the Georgian era; people who have decorated their own skin; traditional third genders in India and Pakistan, along with transgender Muslims. I’m by nature a curious person, who is drawn to anything different to me. So I’m keen to learn about and include these histories. But it seems that society in general is much less interested, ...

  The Hu onstage at Liverpool’s O2 Academy I’ll admit that things have not been easy for me since my last blog. There’s a lot of (understandable) hurt and anger out there when it comes to cultural issues. And I’m not emotionally robust enough to take it. Which is why it was so restorative this week to finally see one of my favourite bands - The Hu - live onstage in Liverpool. It was my first time at a “proper” rock concert, and my first time in Liverpool, so definitely one for the bucket list. Jaya and Gala fronting the band For those who don’t know them, The Hu are a Mongolian folk-rock band of eight musicians, who combine traditional Mongolian throat singing and instruments such as the Morin Khuur (pictured above, played by Gala) with metal beats and guitars. (It’s called Hunnu Rock). They sing entirely in Mongolian, and the lyrics are mainly about aspects of traditional Mongolian culture, respecting the ancestors and nature. They say their mission is to unite people through musi...

  Me and Carlo: BBFs (by Kirsty Rolfe) I’d like to introduce you to Carlo. Some of you may have met him before, but he’s one of the two heroes of Cage of Nightingales , the first of my Angelio novels, which is finally due to be published this year by Deep Hearts YA . Carlo is a castrato singer. When we first meet him, he’s thirteen years old, a student at the Conservatorio Archangeli, a prestigious music school in the city-state of Angelio. He’s talented, kind, loves beautiful things, hates arguments, can be flirty, and just wants a friend who sees him as more than a beautiful voice. And he’s canonically asexual and biromantic. Just thought I’d get that out there. Carlo is named after Carlo Broschi (aka Farinelli), the most famous of the castrato singers of the 18th century. I’ve written quite a bit about Farinelli and the other castrati on this blog, but as it’s LGBT+ History Month (in the UK at least) I thought I’d share with you a few facts about them. “Portrait Group: The Singe...

I’ve written on a third collection of Asexual Fairy Tales. It’s crowdfunding now on this link . One of the tales I discovered - and which I retell in the book - comes from the pen of Miguel de Cervantes, the 17th-century author of  Don Quixote.  It’s called “The Glass Lawyer”. The title character Tomás Rodaja, a lawyer from Salamanca, has never been in love. When a lady’s advances to him are snubbed, she feeds him a potion she believes to be an aphrodisiac. But instead of having the effects she hopes, it makes him ill. And when he recovers, he finds he has developed a strange condition. He believes he is made of glass. I won’t tell you the whole story. (You’ll have to wait for the book!) But Tomás becomes terrified of being touched in case he breaks, and travels around in a packing case full of straw. What is interesting about this story is that, although it’s fictitious, there was a condition known as Glass Delusion, documented from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. S...

  Today, I visited two famous caves in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire: St Robert’s Cave and the much more famous Mother Shipton’s Cave. Both are located by the banks of the River Nidd in the remains of Royal Forest of Knaresborough. Both once housed figures who were considered capable of working (or speaking) wonders. Both spoke truth to power in their day. So why is Ursula Shipton (neé Sontheil) remembered as a witch, while Robert Flower is remembered as a saint? I had been wanting to revisit both caves for some time. And to me, both felt like sacred sites. The cave where Ursula Shipton was allegedly born during a storm, is next to the mystical petrifying or dropping well. Water from a stream pools on top of a cave, then drops into a pool beneath, gradually turning anything in its path to stone. It’s an enchanting spot!  And round the side of that is the entrance to the “wishing well”, a cleft in the rock where the magical water pools, and into which you can dip your hand. Th...

Last week, I wrote about a historical discovery I made after a visit to Halifax Minster, final resting place of Anne Lister. I mentioned that  there was a lot of radical, grassroots religion going on in the West Riding in the 18th century, and I ended up going down quite a rabbit hole of research. One of the places that research led me was to this monograph about the man I believe one of my brothers was named after: He is sometimes called “The Wesley of the Baptists”, and indeed knew the Wesleys and Whitfield, but ultimately formed his own New Connection of Baptist and Independent Methodist congregations, which eventually became the Baptist Union of Great Britain. It was his inspiring preaching tours that led to the creation of a congregation at Queensbury (then named Queenshead after its local pub, popular on the pack horse route between Bradford and Halifax. This in turned spawned my own spiritual home at Clayton Baptist, now under a decade from celebrating its b...

Who doesn't love Lettie Lutz, the Bearded Lady character in The Greatest Showman, who sings   the iconic anthem, This is Me ? Yesterday, my daughter took me to a singalong version of the film for a Mother's Day treat, and we both belted out This is Me at the tops of our voices. Both Lettie and the song have become symbols for anyone who feels marginalised or different. It so happens that last week I watched another film about a hairy woman, the very beautiful Norwegian coming-of-age film,   Løvekvinnen , or The Lion Woman, based on a book by   Erik Fosnes Hanson.   It tells the story of Eva Arctander, who is born in a small town in the early 20th century and struggles to find her place in the world. Especially, it concerns her relationship with her stationmaster father, widowed at her birth. I loved this film - which I watched on Netflix - and I definitely want to see it again. One of my best reads of last year was Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Bi...

Travellers in the Third Reich, Julia Boyd This week, I have been reading Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd.  It might sound like a grim read, but actually it's fascinating.  According to the blurb: Travellers in the Third Reich  is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including students, politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, journalists, fascists, artists, tourists, even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler – one so palpable that the reader will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere. And it's true.  You really do feel like you're there, all the way from 1919 to 1945.  What may seem incredible to some is that foreigners (especially British and American) kept on holidaying in Germany...